MID Devon District Council is stress-testing how its services would cope if public sector workers went on strike.

Unions are balloting workers nationally over industrial action in response to a flat rate pay offer of £1,290 for local government employees, partly because some other public sector workers have secured more.

One of the unions involved is Unison, which is in the process of asking more than 360,000 members across England and Wales whether they want to strike.

The ballot ends on Wednesday, October 16.

“All services are reviewing their business continuity plans,” said James Hamblin, an operations manager at the council.

“Services are planning for if there was a reduction in staff, what core services would be provided.”

He added that staff “pulled together” during the furlough scheme in the pandemic, but appreciated circumstances now are different and could limit what the council could or could not do in response.

Matthew Page, head of people, performance and waste, added that weekly reviews of the workforce are already conducted and would help should strike action be called.

“There are services likely to be targeted more than others, and I would expect waste to be affected potentially, but we will have to see the result of the vote later this month,” he said.

He said residents would be notified if services were going to be impacted.

The threat of strike action comes after the authority suffered its highest sickness rate in four years.

The council had an average of 10.5 sickness days per full-time equivalent employee (FTE) in the 2023/24 financial year.

That was up marginally on the 10 days the year before.

In the first four months of this financial year, however, there have only been 2.6 days of sickness absence per FTE, meaning the council is predicting its full-year figure to come in at around 7.7 days on average.

Mr Hamblin added that staff are being offered flu vaccinations, which 100 employees took this up last year, around a fifth of workers.

So far this year, 70 council staff have had the flu vaccine.

Bradley Gerrard